Seeking Real World Advice On Which Floor Pod Model To Purchase...

As the title says, I want to get a floor pod model, but I need advice on which one. Here's some backstory for context:

I play a lot in church and my amp is a big no-no. They are pretty strict about having as little stage volume as possible. The drummer has to play an electric set and there are no stage monitors. Everyone uses in-ear monitors. Primarily, I play my electric, but sometimes Bass or acoustic if the other musicians cant make it. The Floor Pod Line looks quite appealing for ease of setup and functionality.

I was looking at purchasing the HD500, when I learned about the upcoming HD500x. So I decided to wait. But glancing around different forums, it seems that there isnt much difference in functionality. It seems the biggest change is in DSP. My dilemna comes from not really understanding the whole DSP thing. I get that it is basically the limit of the processing power and that some effects use more of it than others. I get the theory behind it, but I can't grasp how it works in practice since I dont have one to actually play around with. I am also not opposed to the other Floor models, i.e. the HD300, HD400, XTLive, or X3Live. My thought process was just to get the "best" available, but if one of the others will meet my needs, then it would help me save some money to put towards other gear.

The trouble is that I am finding it hard to realistically figure out which one, if any will meet my needs. I installed the HD500 Edit software to play around with, but I think it is a bit useless without the actual unit to test. I tried setting up the software with unrealtistic fx chains to try and reach the dsp limit in an effort to better understand the limit, but I never hit the limit. I tried over and over. Dual amps, with 8 different reverb effects, still didnt hit the limit. I tried every crazy fx chain I could think of, and never hit the limit. I am left to conclude that without an actual unit to play around with, the software was pretty useless. I dont know, maybe I am just doing something wrong.

Realistically, I dont want to use a crazy effects chain though. I usually prefer simple set ups. But lately we are playing songs that use lots of delay effects with different settings, and I dont always have time to change all the settings on the fly. So being able to have multiple delay effects in the chain, is very appealing to me.

Basically, my dream setup contains:

-Amp Sim with nice clean tone (I am not attached to any particular amp model, and single amps are fine, though I am intrigued by the dual amp possibilities)

-Reverb

-Chorus

-Light Overdrive or Distortion for rhythmn tones

-Overdrive or Distortion for Lead tone

-Light delay for lead tone

-Dotted Eighth Delay

-Quarter Note Delay

-Volume Pedal

I would also want presets for acoustic and bass as well, but I dont really use any effects on those, and I would never need to use the electric, bass, and acoustic at the same time.

But thats kind of a dream setup. I will downsize it any way I need to. Basically, I am intending to purchase a floor pod and just want to get the one that meets my needs the most.

The HD500X will absolutely do what it is that you want. The only place where you start to run into some DSP issue is when you're trying to do a dual amp set-up with more than a few heavy effects (spring reverb and pitch effects being the heaviest). For a church set-up, I have not found a better unit than the POD HD stuff. Some guys are still using the X3, but I honestly think you'd be happier with the HD stuff. If you're looking for the best to meet your needs, then the 500X is it.

As far as acoutic goes, you'll be able to run some nice effects (e.g. tube compression, light delay, EQ) without an amp sim on. For bass, you are a bit limited (being that there aren't multiple bass amps like the previous PODs), but there is at least 1 amp in there for you to use, and you can definitely do a direct signal kind of set-up with it.

Because so many worship players use the HD500, you will have access to many tones in the customtone gallery, as well as any other worship players out there (on forums, people you know, etc) who would be willing to share their patches. You'll have go through the procedure I posted about in another thread, but it's no big deal to import 500 patches.

Don't let all of the debate surrounding the new unit scare you off. It's a solid unit, and will do what you want.

I would get the HD500x. In addition to increased flexibility due to the added DSP power, I would imagine that eventually Line 6 may develop new amp models and improved existing models that take advantage of the increased processing power.

The HD500 (can't say X cause I don't own one) will do you a good job, but be ready for many tweaks because it won't setup like a real amp does (if you are used to that setup). Some can dial it in faster than others, but worst case be ready to do some knob dickin and tone shaping cause its the nature of the beast. And, unless you just think you will need that extra 20% of DSP power, I would look on Ebay for a good used HD500 because they are probably selling theirs to upgrade to the X model. YMMV and good luck!